Nov 1, 2013 11:41 AM

In 2009 I finally figured out that running on dirt allowed me to run without constantly getting injured due to an asymetrical stride which in turn is attributable to a severely broken leg from early 2003 (my surgeon told me I'd walk with a limp for the rest of my life and I'd never run again), and as my weekly/monthly mileage climbed I set my sights on averaging one-hundred miles a month for an entire year; something which has proven to be a very elusive goal. That first year I didn't start running until April, and by year's end I'd managed just over 600 miles. The next year (2010) started out well as I managed to run 300 miles through mid May, however, a work projected landed in my lap and suddenly work weeks between 60 and 80 hours became the norm; I didn't even manage to log another 200 miles for the remainder of the year. The years 2011 and 2012 were just as bad as I traded lots of overtime with my one job in Boston for two nearly full-time jobs, the first (morning job) in Boston and the second (afternoon/evening job) in Concord, NH, 75 miles to the north; I managed only a total of 700 miles for both years combined.

This year didn't start out much better; I worked mornings in Boston and afternoons in Concord, and with the time pressures of long work days, lots of January through March snow, and a doctor enforced 4-week layoff due to cataract surgery, I had only logged 139 miles by the end of April. I quit my job in Boston, slashed my commuting from roughly 4 hours per day to less than an hour and cut my work week from 60+ to exactly 40, and guess what I did with much of my newly found "spare time"? Yup, I ran.

My May through October mileage went like this, 54, 136, 218, 254, 208.4, 227.6, and with the 139 I ran during the first four months of the year added in, I was sitting at 1,237 miles as of last night's run. Looking back at my running logs from the late 1970s I see that prior to this year, my highest mileage year was 1979 when I ran just over 700 miles; assuming the snow gods don't dump too heavily upon us here in New Hampshire between now and the end of the year, I have an outside shot at beating my 1979 year by over 1,000 miles! Not too shabby for an old fart.

I'm hoping that since I'm pretty religious about running on dirt trails for the vast majority of my miles, I can keep running for the long term; if I can lose these last 20 pounds (even then I'll still have a BMI in the "Overweight" category) that should help as well.